The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China

by Samuel Hawley

  The truth probably lies somewhere in between. For all the misinformation he received from the Korean front, Hideyoshi could not have helped but conclude from the withdrawal of his armies to Pusan that his original grand design could not be achieved and that the war had in fact been lost. This grim realization lay in part behind his patience throughout the long process of negotiation with the Chinese: ambiguity and delay were preferable to accepting defeat.[567] It seems likely, moreover, that Hideyoshi understood throughout these interminable talks that his representative Konishi Yukinaga was taking certain liberties with the demands he had originally laid down in order to coax a face-saving settlement from the Ming, although just how great those liberties were the taiko certainly did not know. Indeed, if Hideyoshi was completely in the dark with regard to his representative’s machinations, then why did he recall Kato Kiyomasa in disgrace to Japan when the latter attempted to expose Konishi’s presumed disloyalty in altering his master’s demands? Although Hideyoshi never openly expressed a willingness to compromise, by 1596 he was clearly ready to settle for some sort of show of submission, even an empty one, from the court in Seoul and the Ming Chinese, something that could be held up to the nation as further proof of the greatness of the name of Toyotomi and as justification for a long and costly war.

  While Hideyoshi waited for Konishi to deliver the Ming envoys to him, he found no end of things with which to occupy himself. Enjoying the fruits of being taiko was for him a full-time job. First there was the construction of Fushimi Castle to attend to, located on the side of Momoyama, “Peach Mountain,” just outside Kyoto. He had embarked upon the project in September of 1592, initially as an unassuming retirement villa where he could quietly live out his days, puttering about with his poetry and tea. In the following year this modest design was changed. Perhaps Hideyoshi wished to impress the Ming envoys when they eventually arrived with a show of extravagance and grandeur even greater than his castle at Osaka. Or perhaps he was anxious to provide himself and his newborn son Hideyori with a more imposing presence in the capital, something to rival the Jurakutei, the palace occupied by his nephew Hidetsugu, the kampaku of Japan and still his official heir. Whatever the reason, by the end of 1593 the plan for Fushimi had been so greatly expanded that it would take the work of 250,000 laborers to see it complete.

  The result would be unlike anything previously built in Japan. While Fushimi contained a nod to defense in its five-story keep, this did not dominate the grounds as did the donjon at Osaka Castle. The sprawling complex was instead centered on an aesthetically engineered park enclosure of gardens, cherry trees, rustic teahouses, noh stages, and moon-viewing pavilions, with a stream meandering throughout for pleasant boat excursions. In Fushimi we thus see Japan’s sengoku civil war architecture, the soaring castle keeps and unassailable stones walls that regional warlords needed for defense, give way to a natural aestheticism and refinement that would come to dominate Japanese palace design. Their chief purpose would no longer be to provide a safe haven in time of war, but to encourage the pursuit of culture and refinement in peacetime.[568]

  As the taiko oversaw the work at Fushimi, his study of noh theater became something of an obsession, consuming many hours of his day and leaving him often physically exhausted. He had begun his studies while still residing at Nagoya, inviting experts from the various acting schools to his camp to tutor him and favored daimyo within his inner circle. In April of 1593 he wrote to his wife O-Ne that he had so far memorized ten plays, and was determined to learn more.[569] Over the coming months he did. Then, to the forced delight of all, he began staging performances with himself in the lead, and on occasion with such dignitaries as Tokugawa Ieyasu and Maeda Toshiie backing him up. For his first public effort the taiko chose Yumi Yawata, a play celebrating the pacification of Japan in ancient times and the legendary conquest of Korea, and thus heavy with parallels to the current situation.[570] Hideyoshi threw himself into this and subsequent performances with gusto and confidence; judging from his letters he appears to have been immune to the nervous tension one might have expected from an eager amateur with just a year’s training. Hideyoshi regarded himself as accomplished from the start, and assumed that everyone would be delighted to see him act. As he wrote to his wife a year or two into his tutelage,

  Although you have repeatedly sent me letters, I have sent no reply as I have had no free time because of noh.... My noh technique becomes more and more accomplished; whenever I present the shimai [dance portion] of various plays, the whole audience praises it very much. I have already done so for two plays, and after resting a little, I shall act again on the 9th day and show it to all the ladies in Kyoto.... Around the 14th or 15th day, I shall have some free time and will go to Fushimi to hasten the construction work. I shall stay there three to five days, and then visit you quickly so that we can talk together. I shall perform noh at your residence to show [you and others]. Look forward to it.[571]

  Hideyoshi’s infatuation with noh culminated in early 1594 with the commissioning of a series of “new noh plays” glorifying the key events and achievements in his life. They were written by a Hideyoshi retainer and cheerleader named Omura Yuko and would star, of course, Hideyoshi himself. Omura is said to have composed ten plays for the taiko in all, of which five survive today: The Pilgrimage to Yoshino, The Pilgrimage to Koya, The Conquest of Akechi, The Conquest of Shibata, and The Conquest of Hojo. Hideyoshi performed the first of these in Osaka in April 1594, as a special treat for Hidetsugu. In time everyone who was anyone, from resident daimyo and their families to Emperor Go-Yozei himself, would be similarly favored. We can imagine the energetic applause that greeted the end of each of these fetes, the shower of compliments from sycophants eager to please, the crooning of court ladies that the taiko’s skill was beyond compare. The one sour note on record comes from the Jesuit father Luis Frois, who witnessed a demonstration of Hideyoshi’s acting prowess during a visit to Fushimi sometime in the mid-1590s. “[S]ometymes he...intruded and danced amongst the rest,” recalled Frois, “but wth suche an evill grace, as well argued an impotent and dotinge old man.”[572]

  * * *

  For all the time and energy that Hideyoshi lavished upon his study of noh, and for all the money and labor he threw into his grand conception at Fushimi, these were not his chief obsessions from 1593 until his death. That distinction went to his newborn son Hideyori, delivered by the taiko’s concubine Yodogimi in August of that year and given the unpresuming nickname Hiroi, “gleaned.” From that moment onward Hideyoshi grew increasingly consumed with love and worry for this, his only surviving child. His concern would come to overshadow everything else, including his war in Korea and dispute with the Ming.

  Having lost his first son Tsurumatsu at the age of two, Hideyoshi could not help but fret about Hideyori’s health. Whenever he was called away during the first year of the child’s life, he pestered Yodogimi with letters filled with advice on how “O-Hiroi” should be cared for, giving strict and at times even threatening orders on what should and should not be done. “Is O-Hiroi increasingly in good health?” reads a typical note. “Does he suck milk?... [P]lease make Hiroi drink enough milk and take great care of him. Please eat enough food [to make] your milk sufficient [for him].” And again, “[P]lease don’t use moxa on my honorable Hiroi. It will be a crime if you, Mama, invite someone to apply it to him.” And again, “It is important that you spare no effort to prevent Hideyori from catching a chill.... [P]lease give strict orders [to your men] to take care against fire. Every night please send your men to inspect the rooms two or three times. You must not be careless.”[573]

  When Hideyori was still a toddler, Hideyoshi, his self-styled “daddy taiko,” began addressing letters directly to him during his occasional absences, letters filled with pride and love for his growing boy, and expressions of anguish at having to be apart from him even for the shortest time.

  [When Hideyori was two years old]

  You sent me a letter promptly and I am
very happy about it; I intend to have some free time and hurry back. Because you are fond of masks, I have sent someone to find some, even in China, as a present.[574]

  [When Hideyori was three]

  [B]ecause I love you deeply, I shall be back to kiss your lips.[575]

  I am very sorrowful because I left you yesterday without saying goodbye. I think you, too, had the same feeling and I am forever complaining about it here. I am writing this letter because I have such deep affection for you.[576]

  [When Hideyori was four]

  You have sent me a katabira and various dofuku for the seasonal fes-tival; I am very happy and I shall wear them, rejoicing and wishing you a long and happy life. On the actual day of the seasonal festival I shall certainly be back and kiss you. How wonderful it will be![577]

  I shall be back very soon at the end of the year. Then I shall kiss your lips. Your lips should be kissed by no one else, even a little bit. I can imagine how you are growing finer and finer.[578]

  [When Hideyori was five]

  I have understood that Kitsu, Kame, Yasu, and Tsushi have acted against your wishes. As this is something extremely inexcusable, ask your Mother, and then bind these four persons with a straw rope and keep them like that until your Father comes to your side. When I arrive, I shall beat them all to death.[579]

  In 1595 Hideyori was two years old and in good health, and showed every sign of surviving to adulthood. It was thus time for Hideyoshi to act to secure the child’s future. Back in 1592, not long after the death of his first son, Tsurumatsu, the taiko seemingly accepted that he would never father a son of his own, and appointed his sister’s twenty-four-year-old son Hidetsugu as kampaku and heir. Hidetsugu proved a less than ideal choice. A frequent criticism leveled against him was that he took an unnatural delight in killing, a predilection that earned the young man the name “murdering regent.” He is said to have enjoyed strolling through the countryside with a musket in hand, taking shots at unsuspecting farmers working in the fields. While practicing his archery one day, he summoned a passing traveler and skewered him for target practice. According to the Jesuit Luis Frois, Hidetsugu would also on occasion take on the job of public executioner to hone his skill with a sword. He was even said to have “ripped upp woemen to see their entrailes and place of conception.”[580]

  Hidetsugu understood from the moment of his stepbrother’s birth that his own position as heir was in peril. After several years of evidently faithful service to the taiko, he thus began to plot, secretly soliciting support from among the major daimyo in an attempt to build a power base from which to challenge the baby boy. The effort was doomed from the start. Hideyoshi had never granted Hidetsugu much real power to go along with the title of kampaku, and so few daimyo saw anything to be gained by siding with him. In the end his scheming was betrayed to Hideyoshi. In August of 1595 Hidetsugu was stripped of his title and packed off to the monastery at Mount Koya in the province of Kii, a common place of exile for daimyo and dignitaries. A few days later a letter arrived from Hideyoshi ordering him to kill himself. The former kampaku obeyed without hesitation, slitting open his belly in the suicide ritual known as seppuku. A number of his retainers followed his example. His severed head was then sent to Kyoto for viewing.[581]

  Although Hidetsugu was now removed from the scene, Hideyoshi was still not satisfied. To root out any hint of challenge to Hideyori’s position as heir, the taiko ordered Hidetsugu’s chief vassals to take their own lives as well. Then he had his wives, children, and relations rounded up and killed. Luis Frois witnessed this gruesome spectacle, in which thirty-one women and three children met their end. Of the latter the eldest was only five. They were drawn in carts through all the main streets of Kyoto for everyone to see, presenting such a pitiable sight, Frois observed, that “nothinge was there heard but sighinges, and groanes, able to have mooved not onlie men but stoanes into compassion and mercie, and suche as pearced the verie bowels of the most barbarous beholders.” The condemned were then taken to the place of execution. Here they were greeted by the sight of Hidetsugu’s head, prominently displayed as a warning to all. The children were removed from the carts first and killed. Then it was time for the ladies. They were led forward one by one in order of rank, they knelt on the ground, and their heads were struck off. When the killings were over the thirty-four corpses were buried together in a pit, and a shrine erected on top bearing the inscription “Tomb of the Traitors.”[582]

  During the months that followed, Hideyoshi leveled Hidetsugu’s former Kyoto palace, the Jurakutai. Some of the buildings were destroyed outright; others were dismantled and moved to Fushimi. He also called upon each of his daimyo to swear an oath of loyalty to his new heir Hideyori. This taking of oaths of loyalty to the child would become something of an obsession with Hideyoshi, a duty he would require his chief vassals to perform again and again over the coming three years.

  * * *

  When Fushimi Castle was still in the planning stages, Hideyoshi stipulated that it was to be made impervious to earthquakes, or as he described it to the writhing of the numazu, the giant catfish that bore the earth on its back.[583] He had good reason to be concerned. Earthquakes, a perennial problem in Japan to begin with, had become increasingly frequent in recent years, prompting fears that a gigantic cataclysm might not be far off.

  It wasn’t. At eight o’clock in the evening of August 30, 1596, the most powerful quake in living memory struck the capital region, heavily damaging much of Osaka and Kyoto. Hundreds of homes were destroyed. The huge Buddha that Hideyoshi had ordered constructed, in part from melted-down weapons collected in his various sword hunts, was shaken to pieces. Huge tsunamis pounded the coast. Ponds hundreds of meters across rose up from the ground. At Fushimi, every structure either collapsed or was so seriously shaken that it would have to be later pulled down. Hideyoshi himself managed to escape with his life, cradling the precious Hideyori in his arms and accompanied by the child’s mother, Yodogimi. Four hundred other members of the household lay crushed in the ruins.

  It was because of this catastrophe that Kato Kiyomasa was able to win his way back into Hideyoshi’s good graces. Kato, it will be recalled, had just weeks before been ordered back from Korea for meddling in peace negotiations with China. He was now waiting in Kyoto for an audience with the taiko or the order to kill himself. As soon as the great quake struck, Kato, thinking of nothing but the safety of his master, rushed to Fushimi and found Hideyoshi, Yodogimi, and little Hideyori sitting stunned on a mat in front of the ruins. Upon seeing Kato, Hideyoshi exclaimed, “Tora! How quickly you have come!” This friendly use of Kato’s nickname Tora, “Tiger,” was an indication that all was forgiven. In the heartfelt discussion that followed, Kato was able to convince Hideyoshi that he had never been anything but scrupulously loyal and that everything he had said and done had been intended solely to achieve Hideyoshi’s desires. The two men parted on the best of terms, and would remain so to the end.[584]

  * * *

  At the time of the great earthquake of 1596, the Chinese delegation bearing the patent of investiture declaring Hideyoshi King of Japan was residing at the port city of Sakai near Osaka, waiting to be received by the taiko so that they could deliver their document and return home. The calamity necessitated a further delay, for the impressive Hall of a Thousand Tatami Mats that had been specially built at Fushimi for receiving foreign embassies had been almost completely destroyed. A suitably grand venue thus had to be arranged elsewhere. Osaka Castle, one wing of which had escaped the earthquake more or less intact, was the eventual choice. For the next two months repair work proceeded around the clock. In October all was ready.

  * * *

  Ming envoy Yang Fangheng and vice-envoy Shen Weijing were granted an audience by Hideyoshi at Osaka Castle on October 22. They proceeded to the castle in company with the Korean delegation under Hwang Sin, grudgingly sent by the government in Seoul. When they arrived outside the fortress’s huge gate, a messenger came out to meet th
em with word that the Koreans were not to be allowed inside. Hideyoshi, he said, was upset that the Koreans had not sent the two royal princes and a top government minister as he had demanded, but only an official of lowly rank. The undoubtedly distraught Hwang was thus left waiting outside while the Chinese delegation entered alone.

  Inside the castle the Chinese were ushered into a great reception hall and brought before a platform set in front of a yellow screen. Yang stood at the fore. Shen took up a position a step behind, holding up the patent of investiture and gold seal reverently before him. After a time the yellow screen opened and a small, wizened old man stepped onto the platform above the Ming delegation, supporting himself with a cane, accompanied by two attendants dressed in blue. This was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the taiko himself. He nodded to the Chinese envoys, then turned to the crowd of daimyo present and asked why these visitors did not prostrate themselves before him in the customary way. Konishi Yukinaga quietly explained that these were distinguished envoys from China and could not be expected to do such a thing. The Chinese, meanwhile, were waiting for Hideyoshi to prostrate himself before the imperial edict that Shen Weijing continued to hold aloft. Did this barbarian warlord not understand the sacred nature of the document? Or was he delivering a studied insult? Again one of Hideyoshi’s quick-thinking attendants stepped forward to smooth things out. The taiko did not intend any disrespect by not kneeling, he communicated to the Ming. He was simply unable to do so because of a painful boil on his knee. The gross misunderstanding that existed between Hideyoshi and the Chinese was thus papered over for one more day, with each thinking the other was willing to submit. The investiture document was duly handed over, then the gold seal, the crown, and the silk robes, and the Ming delegation retired.[585]